


Mend Me With Gold

by estriel



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Casual Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forgiveness, Hopeful Ending, Idiots in Love, LobbySameSameChallenge, M/M, Yuzu/Roman cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:02:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29720412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estriel/pseuds/estriel
Summary: “When we retire, it will be easier,” he tells Yuzu, voice low and conspiratorial, like this is their secret. Yuzu believes him. It is easier than admitting that he will always be like this – breaking and bleeding inside, like glass, whenever Javi leaves and goes to fuck whomever he fucks when he is not with Yuzu.
Relationships: Javier Fernández & Yuzuru Hanyu, Javier Fernández/Yuzuru Hanyu, Yuzuru Hanyu/Roman Sadovsky
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52





	Mend Me With Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Same Same, But Different" challenge - the idea was that all of the participants would use the same prompt and see all the different directions our brains would take this. The prompt is the lyric from a song by Tokio Hotel, quoted at the beginning of the text. Make sure to click the "LobbySameSameChallenge" tag to see the other stories! <3
> 
> A big fat thank you to @ForeverDoesntExit for the beta and a much-needed pep-talk, you are golden! <3 Whatever mistakes you spot, and whatever issues there are with the plot that I did not fix despite having them pointed out, it's all on me.

_Falling in and out of love is a part of us_

_I keep hanging on to secret promises_

_You broke me apart, like shattered glass_

_Our love is gross, but I'm covered in gold_

~ Covered in Gold, Tokio Hotel ~

It’s not a planned thing, or a thought-through one, like most things in Yuzu’s life tend to be. It just happens. He’s twenty-one and one day, just like that, Javi has him pressed up against a wall in an empty locker room, kissing the lights out of him. Just like that, Yuzu is moaning into his mouth, obscenely loud and wanton, because he has never been kissed quite like this, and besides, he has had a crush on Javi for almost as long as he has been in Toronto.

It’s crazy and dangerous – anyone could walk in, after all – and it’s the best thing that has happened to Yuzu since the gold in Sochi. Javi’s hot mouth, Javi’s tongue tangling with his, Javi’s body pressed up against him in all the right places – it’s everything Yuzu wants, aside from the PyeongChang gold.

Javi is in-between girls, or so Yuzu thinks, and so he lets it happen – the kisses, the make-out sessions in-between practices, and then, eventually, the evening at Javi’s apartment, where Javi serves him hot chocolate, then strips him naked and touches him everywhere until Yuzu feels blind with want. Javi fingers him open, so careful and slow, so slow that Yuzu screams at him in frustration and impatience – doesn't Javi think he has done this to himself before, fucked himself with the dildo he hopes his mother never finds out about?! Finally, Javi fucks him, and it’s so good Yuzu could cry, Javi so big and hard inside him, stretching and filling him up almost to the point of breaking, and Yuzu thinks he will never, ever get enough of him.

Javi kisses him after, and holds him even though Yuzu is sweaty and panting and frankly sort of gross, covered in fluids – but Javi doesn’t seem to care, swiping his fringe away and kissing his forehead, his temples, his eyelids and, finally, Yuzu’s kiss-bruised mouth.

It is perfect, and when Javi praises him and tells him how gorgeous he is, Yuzu _knows_ for a fact that he will never get enough of Javi.

*

It’s like a yo-yo, this thing they have – there are months when Yuzu feels so close to Javi, and months that they might as well be living on the opposite ends of the planet, even though they are still skating together, still competing together.

It’s in one of those phases of closeness that Yuzu says them, the words that have grown and scaled the vestiges of his heart like vines. It’s when they are lying together post-sex, Javi’s now soft dick still inside him – he will have to pull out soon, Yuzu knows, but he relishes the sensation, almost soothing after he’s been fucked raw.

“Daisuki,” the words slip out, quiet but audible enough, and terribly, frighteningly true. Javi’s eyes widen a fraction, and his hand stills where it has been carding through Yuzu’s hair but only for a second. Then Javi resumes the movement and leans in to kiss Yuzu, a slow dance of tongue against tongue, stirring the embers inside Yuzu’s belly into a fresh flame. He kisses Yuzu so good that Yuzu forgets all the words in the world.

It’s only when he gets back home that night that he realizes Javi didn’t say it back. Maybe he didn’t understand, since Yuzu had spoken in Japanese – that is what Yuzu tells himself as he drifts off to sleep, even though he knows what a thinly veiled delusion that is, what with Javi’s history with Miki.

*

“It wouldn’t work right now,” is what Javi says when Yuzu asks what they are, or if they can be together for real. Javi looks at him with those deer eyes of his, so warm and honest, and kisses the soft flesh of Yuzu’s palm, then presses it to his own stubbled jaw. “I can’t imagine… competing would be too hard, Yuzu.”

Yes, that makes sense, it already _is_ hard and they’re only sleeping together. Javi is right. Yuzu has medals to win, gold to claim, expectations to live up to.

He doesn’t allow himself to think about it too much, the _other_ reasons why Javi might not want to date him. Then Javi starts dating another girl and it’s suddenly all Yuzu can think about, Javi not wanting to be with him but wanting to be with some Spanish woman? It hurts, and Yuzu decides that this is it, that he will let things go…

Except he can’t. It’s like there is an insatiable beast inside him, perpetually hungry, always wanting more, and the only time it stops clamoring for his attention is when they are together, Javi buried inside him and whispering things into Yuzu’s ear, all the things except the one Yuzu desperately wants to hear.

He feels weak. Obsessed. He lies in bed at home and wonders what it would feel like – for Javi to come inside him, no condom, just Javi spilling himself inside Yuzu, claiming him like that, like he has already claimed Yuzu’s heart. (They always use condoms. Javi sleeps with other people, Yuzu knows he does, and it makes him feel like he is not enough, never enough for Javi.)

“Your heart,” Javi whispers one such night, forehead pressed into Yuzu’s chest, kissing his sternum, his palm over where Yuzu’s heart is fluttering like a trapped bird. Javi doesn’t finish the thought. Instead he just lays his head down, ear pressed into Yuzu’s skin, while his hands find Yuzu’s wrists and encircle them.

“When we retire, it will be easier,” he tells Yuzu, voice low and conspiratorial, like this is their secret. Yuzu believes him. It is easier than admitting that he will always be like this – breaking and bleeding inside, like glass, whenever Javi leaves and goes to fuck whomever he fucks when he is not with Yuzu.

*

He is injured at the worst possible time, when he should be training like never before, his dream of gold so close and hurtling even closer… Yuzu plunges deep into depression, then claws himself out on the promises of his medical team, on sheer stubbornness, on painkillers and frustration and more will than he thought he had in him.

It brings him clarity, this time without Javi, this respite. He cannot go on like this, in love and yet so bereft, so out of the sphere of Javi’s _real_ life, the life where Javi has girlfriends and dates and probably dreams of marriage, too.

It is easier to stay apart now, with so much at stake, and with so much to focus on other than Javi – like working up from shaky doubles to quads in two-weeks’ time, for instance. It’s easy to stay apart in PyeongChang, too, with the whole world watching, with the pressure bearing down on Yuzu’s shoulders so heavily he can barely breathe.

He thinks it’s over, and catching sight of Javi’s current girlfriend right there, at the Games, hardens his resolve even further. He is untouchable now, cold and hardened, like solid gold. 

And then.

“I will retire,” the words pierce through Yuzu’s brain, sharp and clear despite the clamor all around, despite the clicking cameras, the excited crowd, the voice of the announcer over the speakers in the arena. _I will retire_ , and Yuzu feels his word fall apart, the very idea of training without Javi, being without Javi so alien and wrong it drives all air out of his lungs and tears into his eyes.

“I can’t do without you,” he sobs, hanging on to Javi, onto his familiar shoulder – so much more familiar than anyone around him knows, the shoulder he has cried into, the shoulder he had clawed red crescents into when they were one, lost in one another, past coherent thought.

He seeks Javi out that night, and Javi cries with him, rocking into him softly, gently, until Yuzu is a sobbing mess once again, Javi a warm weight draped over him.

Javi’s fingers are on his face, drawing soft lines, wiping at his tears, Javi’s lips kissing the corner of his mouth, his chin, the freckle on his shoulder.

Javi whispers something in Spanish, soft and quiet, a tickle of breath against Yuzu’s skin.

  
“What you say?” Yuzu asks, his whole body still tingling, quivering, his legs wrapped around Javi still. “Javi?”

Javi looks up, and his eyes are red-rimmed and wide, like he is broken, too, like he is scared. He shakes his head, one, two, three shakes. “Nothing,” he says, voice all strange, “nothing, cariño.”

*

It is pure joy, skating in the shows after the Olympics, basking in the adoration of the crowd, of the cast… and, most importantly, Javi’s adoration. They hold hands on the ice. They make-out backstage, in the breaks between the opening and their individual performances, and then again, in the break between that and the finale: Yuzu’s back pressed against the wall of a toilet-stall, Javi’s mouth on his throat. Yuzu’s hand in Javi’s dance-belt, Javi biting into his fist to hold back his moans. Yuzu going out to skate Haru Yo, Koi, skin covered in goose-bumps because Javi had just whispered something filthy into his ear as they passed each other in the corridor.

It is bliss, Javi in his bed every night during tour – sometimes stumbling in after his outing with the rest of the cast, sometimes making excuses so he can spend hours driving Yuzu crazy. It is on one such night, while Javi is slumbering in the crook of Yuzu’s arm, that Yuzu realizes that Javi is retired now. Javi is retired, or very nearly, which means that they no longer have to worry about their relationship getting in the way of competition. Yuzu’s heart swells with hope, his head full of images of how they could make things work, splitting time between Spain and Canada for now, and maybe Yuzu could bravely stop living with his mother and rent his own apartment, _their_ own apartment…

He doesn’t tell Javi, not yet, choosing instead to linger in the knowledge, in the warmth of it, the buoyant beauty of it. He saves it for the end of the tour, for when they are both pleasantly tired and satisfied from the successful shows and the sex, drifting together in lazy afterglow.

“Javi,” he says, lifting his head from Javi’s chest. Javi smiles at him – drowsy and sweet, his eyes warm and dreamy like a summer night. Yuzu loves him, can barely wait to have Javi look at him like this every night, every morning, in some not-too-distant future. “You’re retiring.”

Javi frowns, his browns knitting together in confusion. “Yes,” he says flatly.

Yuzu smiles, slithering up Javi’s body a little so they are nose to nose, so he can place his palms on either side of Javi’s face, Javi’s 5-o’clock shadow a pleasant tingle against his skin. He kisses Javi’s confused mouth. “It means we are not competing anymore,” he says, voice light, heart lighter. “Now we can be together for real.”

Javi looks at him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything, just looks at Yuzu but it’s all there in his eyes, and it’s like that ice bucket challenge Yuzu once did, an ice-cold realization hitting him all at once, dousing everything he had envisioned – every hope, every dream, every –

“Yuzu,” Javi blurts, and quickly traps him in his arms when Yuzu starts to move away, hurt, eyes filling with tears.

“No,” Yuzu protests but it is weak, as if someone had sucked all energy out of him.

“Yuzu, listen to me,” Javi says, almost pleading. Yuzu doesn’t want to. But there’s nothing he can do, nowhere he can run, blind with tears and numb with pain, all of it so sudden and unexpected, paralyzing him, punching all air out of him. “You know I like you, we had fun, I… You have to understand. I have a life to build in Spain – the show, my school, my – “

“Your girlfriend,” Yuzu finishes for him, a weak exhale, his forehead dropping onto Javi’s chest. He can’t even be angry. He had thought… but of course that had been stupid, naïve. Javi had never promised him anything, not really, he had never even said _I love you_ , not once, not even close, even though he says that about his girls publicly, out for everyone to see.

Yuzu cries, sobs, ugly and wet against Javi’s skin, disgusted by Javi, by himself, by how dumb and weak he is.

“Go,” he manages to whisper eventually, the single word singing his throat, choking him.

“Yuzu,” Javi tries, his hands hovering just above Yuzu’s back, like he wants to touch him still, like he wants to _soothe_ him. Suddenly, Yuzu sees red, blinking furiously, swatting Javi’s hands away.

“GO!” he shouts, rolling off of Javi, burying his face in his pillow. Maybe he will actually choke – on the pillow, the tears, his pain and disappointment and fury.

The mattress shifts, and Yuzu doesn’t look up. He covers his ears so he doesn’t hear the rustle of the sheets, doesn’t hear Javi get up and get dressed and leave. He is not sure how long he lies there, blind and deaf, trapped in the miserable darkness. All he knows is that when he finally, eventually, opens his eyes, feeling cold and clammy, filthy and used, Javi is not there anymore.

*

Yuzu is not sure how he makes it through the season. He’s running on auto-pilot, skating, winning, hooking up. _Blowing off steam_ , he thinks when he fucks the Canadian kid, Roman, at Autumn Classic, wondering all the while if this is what Javi had been doing with him, just relieving some pressure… But no, not quite, because unlike Roman, Yuzu had not known what he was getting into. He wonders if it would have changed things, had Javi told him what Yuzu had bluntly told Roman – that it was _just fun, if you want, just sex_. Probably not. Because Yuzu is stupid, has always been so stupid for Javi. 

He is stupid with his health, too, when his ankle snaps and he decides to skate on it anyway, the physical pain seemingly better than the constant throbbing agony inside his heart. It leaves him in crutches, hopping onto a podium in Russia to receive another gold… which makes him feel sick to the stomach: to stand there, smiling, and realize that this may be the last time, that he may never skate again because of what he has just put himself through.

It is somewhere around that time that Yuzu realizes that he needs to stop this. Stop hating himself. Stop blaming himself. Stop destroying himself.

It is hard not to be so hard. To be kind to himself. To forgive himself. But he does. He forgives himself for all the things he has put himself through physically, for all the times he was reckless post-injury. And finally, he forgives himself for having fallen for Javi.

It is a breath of relief. A weight lifting off his chest. And even though he still aches, the pain behind his ribs becomes mellower, easier to deal with, fading along with the pain in his ankle.

  
Maybe that is why, when Worlds in Saitama comes to its bitter, silver end, Yuzu feels whole enough to smile at Javi during the banquet, accept a hug, tell him _we can be friends_ when Javi asks.

Javi trails after him when he leaves the banquet hall at the end of the night. They stop in front of Yuzu’s room and Javi stands before him, looking at him through his eyelashes, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. Yuzu feels his heartbeat flutter madly beneath his skin, feels a lick of heat at the base of his spine. 

“Can I join you?” Javi asks, eyes bright and hopeful.

Yuzu is incredibly grateful for his new-found self-preservation skills in that moment. A part of him, a base, primordial part of him, screams in deafening agreement, making his skin hot, making his knees weak. What Yuzu actually says, however, is: “No.” He gives Javi a small smile. “Good night, Javi,” he says and slips into his room, closing the door behind him.

He allows the tears that have sprung up in his eyes to spill, allows the quiet little sigh clogging up his throat to escape. And then, Yuzu goes to take a shower, and has a good night’s sleep.

*

Yuzu is halfway between the end of the season and the beginning of Fantasy on Ice when Javi calls him, catching him by surprise. He has just finished his school work for the night when his phone rings, Javi’s name bobbing on the screen. It is 10PM in Toronto, which means it is an obscenely late hour of the night in Spain, and he is instantly worried. Javi never calls, what if something happened, what if –

“Are you okay?” The words are out the moment he picks up the phone.

“Yusuuu,” Javi’s voice slurs around his name, his accent thicker than usual.

“Javi, is everything ok?” Yuzu asks once again. Javi doesn’t sound hurt. He sounds…

“Everything is fine but you’re not here, Yuzu,” Javi whines, and that’s it, Yuzu can now pinpoint it. Javi doesn’t sound hurt. He sounds _drunk_. Yuzu sighs.

“Are you at home, Javi?” he asks just to make sure.

“Sí,” Javi confirms, and yawns loudly.

“Go to sleep, Javi,” Yuzu tells him, stuck between exasperation and amusement. He’s about to hang up when Javi speaks again, drawing his attention. 

  
“Cariño,” he mumbles, the endearment hooking itself into the soft crevices of Yuzu’s heart. Yuzu takes a breath, then carefully lets it go. “Yuzu, Yuzu, I love you.”

“No, Javi, you don’t,” Yuzu says, perhaps sharper than he intended but he is not going to play this game, is not going to let this hurt him. “Go to sleep,” he repeats, and hangs up.

Javi calls the next day to apologize, sounding tired and honest in his apology, so Yuzu accepts it, laughing at Javi for a bit, then laughing with Javi as he recounts how his friends got him so drunk he ran into a street-lamp on his way to the taxi. When Javi swears he’s never going to get wasted again, Yuzu rolls his eyes and tells him not to be delusional.

It becomes a tradition after that, Javi calling Yuzu every once in a while, one that continues – in person, even – through the Fantasy on Ice tour that summer, and then beyond. Javi calls Yuzu to chat, to offer words of encouragement when Yuzu gets frustrated with practice, with his scores, words of congratulations when Yuzu wins Skate Canada for the first time.

It is warm, friendly, _welcome_. Yuzu misses Javi, and it is Javi whom he calls after Japanese Nationals, low and miserable and feeling like he wants to quit. It should not surprise him, the metaphorical hand-up Javi offers, just like he always had when Yuzu had taken a hard fall in practice, but it does, Javi’s words wrapping around him like a warm blanket.

“Don’t doubt yourself,” Javi tells him. “You’re so strong, Yuzu, you’re the champion and you will be the champion again, I _know_ it.” They are platitudes, Yuzu knows, but somehow from Javi they are also the truth... or they will be, Yuzu resolves, and then proceeds to win Four Continents to ensure he is true to his resolve.

He is good. He is strong. He is ready for Worlds.

*

It turns out that nobody is ready for Worlds, least of all the world with the pandemic spreading like wildfire across the globe. Yuzu thought he knew what it meant to be lonely back when he was routinely shutting himself into his own mental bubble to focus on training a few years ago… but he was wrong, he was _so_ wrong. Without his coaches, without training mates, without anyone but his family for company, it is hard, harder than hard to keep pushing himself, to keep working towards a goal that feels more and more futile with every passing day.

He talks to Nobu. To Keiji. After a few months of radio silence, he talks to Brian and Jeff and Shae, which feels great but also just makes him miss everyone even more. And he talks to Javi, of course, who puts on a brave face and cheers Yuzu on even though Yuzu can tell that it is a struggle for him, too, to stay afloat, to keep himself from tumbling into the dark pit of depression.

He is selfish because he takes what Javi is offering and doesn’t push, doesn’t probe deeper and ask Javi how he is doing, _really_ , beneath the smiles and the stories of the cherry tomatoes he has planted on his window sills, of the woman in the building across who sings and dances on her balcony every evening. It makes him feel guilty because they are friends, aren’t they, and he _should_ do better, try harder to support Javi. But he can’t, he can’t because talking of actual feelings might mean opening himself up to Javi in return – and the last time Yuzu tried that, he got so hurt he still shies away from thinking about it. He has forgiven Javi, he truly has, but that doesn’t mean he can stop being cautious with his heart, especially considering how stupid his heart tends to get around the man.

And then Javi posts about Yuzu on Instagram. About missing him. About wanting to see him. It punches the air out of Yuzu’s lungs and he sits in his bedroom sobbing, clutching his phone to his chest because while it isn’t exactly the kind of post Javi would make about his girlfriends, it is not that far from it… or maybe that is just Yuzu’s wishful thinking. He hates it. It makes it painfully obvious just how much he is still in love with Javi.

*

Stockholm is a bad idea. It is dangerous and reckless and Yuzu has to go, he _has to go_. If it was just his own career, he might consider pulling out, calling it quits. He has his golds, all the golds he could possibly want… except not, of course, he knows it in his secret heart. A part of him covets the third Olympic gold but not enough to risk so much. He is not a reckless, clueless, stubborn kid anymore. Gold is not worth risking his health, his life, _other people’s_ lives. He could – would – give up on that dream. But he has to go because Olympic spots are at stake and he cannot leave his team hanging, cannot take away that Olympic dream from the others, especially one of the young kids, Yuma, or Shun, or whoever might be aiming at earning a spot on the Olympic team for their first time.

He does his best to make it worth it, to make it count, at least, if he is going to be responsible for putting people at risk. Perhaps that is why, when the competition ends and Javi seeks him out – Javi who is there with Team Spain, smiling at him from beneath his mask every time their paths intersect backstage, or in the hotel – perhaps that is why Yuzu nods when Javi asks if they can talk, in private.

It makes him feel fragile, opening the door to his room and letting Javi in. He tells himself he is reluctant to do so because of the risks involved, and not because it makes his nerve-endings tingle, not because it closes up his throat and makes it hard to breathe. This is a lie, of course, because the moment Javi turns to him, crow feet deepening around his eyes, Yuzu tells him to take off his mask, stupidly, recklessly, just because he has missed Javi’s smile and wants to see it again.

“Will you be okay, though?” Javi asks hesitantly and Yuzu shrugs.

“I am here,” Yuzu says, meaning Worlds, meaning Sweden, not here and now in particular. “Damage is done already,” he adds.

Javi’s eyes go wide. “You – what do you mean? You didn’t catch anything?” he blurts and steps towards Yuzu, not away, which is counterproductive if Javi wanted to avoid getting infected.

“All my tests were negative,” Yuzu tells him and Javi’s breath shudders out of him. He leans against the desk that is behind him, sagging a little.

“God, Yuzu,” Javi then says, rubbing at his face. “Don’t do this to me.” He lets out a strained little laugh, then takes a shaky breath before looking up at Yuzu to meet his eyes once again. “This whole year, I was – “ A head-shake, a fist clenching and unclenching by Javi’s side. “I spent the whole pandemic terrified.”

“We all did, I think,” Yuzu says softly and hopes it didn’t come across dismissive.

“No, yeah, I mean – “ Javi stops there and for a moment they stand there in silence, just looking at each other. Then the words come tumbling out, rooting Yuzu to the spot: “I was terrified about you, that I would – that you would get sick, or die, or something else would happen to you, I don’t know, and that we would never see each other again, and I hated it so much, Yuzu.” Javi’s voice is cracking, and his eyes look suspiciously shiny, but he barrels on, as if afraid he’d lose his courage if he didn’t get it all out: “I couldn’t live with that, you know, I hurt you so much and I never even _apologized_ , I never even told you the truth, I – “

“What truth?” Yuzu interrupts, barely a breath, and Javi’s eyes dart up to him, so intense Yuzu almost wants to flinch. His heart is rabbiting inside his chest, frantic and wild, and Yuzu wonders if he should maybe let this go and not probe further, just like he has done during their calls. Then he realizes that this is alright. He wants the truth, even if it hurts, even if it’s hard.

Javi sighs. “I was scared, Yuzu,” he admits, his shoulders sagging a little. “All these times we were together, I – I wanted you. So much. But I was scared so I just – I walked away every time. It felt safer.”

“Safer?” Yuzu echoes, not sure what else to say. It feels like something inside him is tearing open, something he has let scab over and compartmentalized and tried hard not to dwell on.

“Yes,” Javi says. “I’m so sorry. It seemed safer to just let you go and pretend I wasn’t feeling what I was feeling. I mean, you are a man, and you are _you_ , and I thought it would make our lives so hard. I was stupid. And a coward. I hurt you and I am so, _so_ sorry.”

Javi hangs his head, his face flushed, biting his lip. Yuzu stands there dumbfounded, reeling from the pain that has flickered back to life inside him, the pain he had buried and moved past. Alongside it, however, there is something else – not the monster of his younger years, so desperate and hungry, but something softer. Gentler. More cautious but no less fluttery. Yuzu realizes, with a shiver, that it is yearning. That it is _hope_.

  
“I accept your apology,” he tells Javi. He had forgiven Javi a long while ago already, after all. He watches relief spill across Javi’s face, and feels something inside himself loosen, too.

“Thank you,” Javi breathes and moves as if to embrace Yuzu, then stops himself, tucks his hands behind his back. “There’s one more thing I want to say,” he says and waits for Yuzu’s nod. “Just… I know I can’t expect anything. I don’t have the right to, and I am very grateful that we can be friends,” Javi starts and waits for another nod from Yuzu before continuing. “I just wanted to tell you anyway.” Yuzu watches Javi swallow, square his shoulders. Then he looks straight at Yuzu, eyes bashful and nervous. “I love you. I have for… a long time, really.”

The words are like the sweetest ache. They spill through Yuzu, making him a little light-headed. He had been desperate for them for so long, craving them, _needing_ them. Now he doesn’t. He doesn’t _need_ Javi. He still _wants_ him, though.

He must be silent for too long because Javi drops his gaze and starts speaking again. “I know it’s too late and like I said, I do not expect anything, really, I – “

“It’s not,” Yuzu says quickly, perhaps foolishly, before he can think about it too much.

Javi blinks at him. “Huh?”

“It’s not too late,” Yuzu says and wonders if he’s making a mistake. Maybe he is. But he’s willing to take the risk. He’s been broken so many times and yet he would risk it again. Isn’t that what makes life beautiful? Trying? _Daring_? Worst case, he will mend the cracks again, filling them with gold, like kintsugi. He knows he can, and knows he will come out stronger for it.

“It’s not – Yuzu?” Javi is staring at him, eyes wide.

Yuzu steps closer, reaching up until his hands land on Javi’s face, until he can brush his thumbs across Javi’s cheeks. “One chance, Javi,” he murmurs before he leans in to kiss Javi, kiss off the shock and disbelief off his face, brushing their lips together slowly, carefully.

“Oh god,” Javi mumbles into his mouth when they come apart, then dives in for another kiss, deeper and endless and tasting of salt because Javi is crying, his hands fisted in Yuzu’s t-shirt on his shoulders. The next time Javi speaks, it is half-sob, half-moan, his voice breaking around Yuzu’s name, around Spanish words that sound achingly familiar when he says them. “Te quiero,” he says, into Yuzu’s hair, his temple, his neck, kissing everywhere he can reach.

Yuzu lets himself melt into it, lets go of the worries he has been carrying around the whole week, the whole season, the whole year. He doesn’t think, just sinks into Javi’s kisses, then into his skin when he gets Javi out of his shirt and sweater. It feels so good, so right, knowing Javi like this again after more than two years of trying to forget, two years of a fragile sort of friendship, two years of what Yuzu now realizes has been Javi repenting, rebuilding a trust he had lost. He knows it might be too soon, that maybe he should wait and see instead of taking a leap of faith. But Yuzu is sick of waiting. Javi was not the only one who spent months wondering if they’ll ever see each other again, after all. 

It feels so good, Javi’s mouth on his neck, his hands at his waist, Javi’s body under his when they tumble onto the bed. It feels so unbelievably good that, upon realizing he hasn’t brought any condoms, Yuzu curses so viciously that Javi gasps and gives him a startled look. His hand is halfway inside Javi’s pants and he pulls it back, frustrated. Yuzu has brought lube, of course he has – it is almost a ritual after a competition, when the stress finally falls off him, to jerk off and make himself feel good. He had just not been planning on doing anything with other people. He had been isolating completely aside from the competition, being smart and responsible – and now he wants to slap himself because it feels like he will crawl out of his skin if he doesn’t get this, Javi, _all of him_ , all the way, right now.

“I don’t,” Javi sighs, crestfallen, when Yuzu asks him if he has brought some. Javi had always been prepared, back then, back when they used to sleep together. “I’ve not really…” Javi starts, blushes, color high in his cheeks and spilling down his neck. “I haven’t really been with anyone since my last break-up,” he admits, drawing a surprised gasp out of Yuzu because as far as Yuzu knows, that had been nearly two years ago. “I just didn’t want anyone,” Javi says with a shrug, then looks up at Yuzu.  
  
“Oh,” Yuzu says, overwhelmed, understanding the part Javi had not said. _I didn’t want anyone but you_. He kisses Javi, fierce and possessive, chasing the flavor of his mouth with a new sort of urgency, his hands in Javi’s hair, his hips grinding down into Javi’s.

“I get tested,” he tells Javi when they pull apart to gasp for breath, and watches Javi’s eyes go dark, his mouth drop open slightly. “I’m good. Clean,” he adds, then holds his breath because… well. Because they’ve never done this, not once, no matter how much Yuzu had wanted to.

Javi nods and pulls Yuzu back down, into the kiss, into his body, crushing him in his arms.

“How do you want me?” he gasps into Yuzu’s ear later, once they are naked, burning against one another.

For a second, Yuzu imagines fucking Javi like he had fucked Roman, hard and rough and buried inside him from behind… and he will do this, he will, he wants Javi in all the ways he can have him… but later. Now Yuzu wants something else, wants what he has always wanted, desire thick inside his throat when he says: “Like always.”

Like always, except it’s not like that at all…

Not when Javi’s eyes are swimming with soft tears, happy and relieved, once he is inside Yuzu, one of Yuzu’s knees hooked over his shoulder, staring down at Yuzu with so much love painted across his face that Yuzu feels like he’s going to choke on it and die right there, happy and full and aching just a bit from the stretch.

Not when Javi whispers _I love you_ before he starts moving, and then again, and again, his breath hitching and breaking around the sounds he makes, around Yuzu’s name when Yuzu grabs for him and pulls him in deeper, faster, harder, demanding that Javi fuck him, whispering a hot _you’re mine_ against Javi’s neck before he sucks the tender flesh inside his mouth, leaving a bruise.

Not when Javi whimpers, “I am, Yuzu, yours, only yours,” grabbing for Yuzu’s hair and smacking their mouths together in a rough kiss while he keeps driving into Yuzu. Javi fucks him to the brink of madness, then tips him over, not stopping even as Yuzu shudders and clenches around him, coming in a hot mess all over his chest.

And then – then Javi comes, hips stuttering to a stop as he spills himself inside Yuzu, filling him with his heat, _claiming_ him. Yuzu bites down on Javi’s shoulder to keep himself from whining out loud at how good it feels to finally have Javi like this, feel Javi like this, down to the last shred, like Yuzu is all Javi needs and wants.

Then Javi smiles, lifting his head from where he had collapsed in a messy pile on top of Yuzu. His eyes are red-rimmed but hopeful. “Can we be together for real?” he asks, bites his lip.

Yuzu thinks about it. Perhaps it will not be forever. Perhaps they will break and shatter again. But they will never know until they try. 

“Yes,” he says, and hugs Javi closer.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic... I started writing it in mid-January, I think, then it was left to sit around for a month or more. Finished it by sheer stubbornness. It feels like three fics mashed up, bundled into one, a hot mess. But I pat myself on the back for actually finishing it and writing for the challenge like I said I would.
> 
> PS: _Kintsugi_ , which is mentioned in the story and was going to be the title before I changed my mind, is an old Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the cracks with lacquer mixed with powdered gold.
> 
> PPS: If you want to come chat about figure skating, fic, ships, plots, and pancakes, and are at least 18 years old, we have a lovely [Discord server](https://discord.gg/DyxBV5mXg2) for that! Would love to see you there!


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